MUMBAI: Sahara Samay vice-president Prabhat Dabral, who has been managing the network's national channel Sahara Samay Rashtriya, now has editorial functions added to his portfolio. Dabral will shoulder additional responsibilities in the network as head of all Sahara's news bureaus.

According to a company source, the creation of a position of head of Sahara News Bureaus has been done mainly to oversee the operations of the news channels. The person will also function as a focal point to whom all individual channel heads will report.

Another change being instituted is that Rao Birendra Singh, who had been looking after Sahara Samay UP (the Uttar Pradesh-specific news channel) and Sahara Samay Rashtriya, will now only have Sahara Samay Rashtriya under his editorial charge.

Sahara India Media and Entertainment (SIME) head of media operations Sudhir Kumar will now have to decide who is to head Sahara Samay UP. According to company sources, the post will in all likelihood be filled by an internal appointee.

A point of note is that Sahara Samay Mumbai is not part of the new reporting structure.The Mumbai operation is looked after by Sahara Samay vice-president Rajiv Bajaj.

When queried as to why the Mumbai head does not have to report in to Dabral, it was pointed out that the Mumbai operations, including the channel's uplinking, are taken care of in the city, whereas the other news channels are uplinked out of Noida on the outskirts of Delhi.

Dabral would also oversee the launch of Sahara Samay Gujarati and English for south India, which are in the pipeline. The two region-specific channels are targeted for a year-end launch.

Last month, SIME senior VP Ambikanand Sahay quit from the post suddenly. The management has yet not taken any decision as to who would take over from Sahay after his departure.

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